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Home > Virtual Museum > Holocaust Memorials : Holocaust Memorial in Norway

Holocaust Memorial in Norway

Oslo Holocaust Memorial

Monument commissioned by the Oslo Jewish Community and Norwegian Parliament by Anthony Gormley, British Artist. The site is on the south side of the Oslo Fjord, below of the old fort, near where the ships carrying 750 of Norway's Jews to Stettin and then Auschwitz departed from. The monument is a series of empty, cast iron  chairs without seats to reflect the idea of  "absence."  The Jews were deported on three ships: the "Bredtveit," the  "Donau" and the "Monte Rosa" all on the same date: 26/11/1942

See for details:
The Second World War and the re-establishment of the community
Norway Holocaust Compilation
Jewish Monument by Anthony Gormley

Winner of the 1994 Turner prize, Gormley is probably best known for his gigantic winged sculpture, The Angel of the North, but you may recognise Field for the British Isles - a huge, mesmerising installation consisting of a vast sea of terracotta figures.


Vacant Chairs
Looking from fort to Oslo Fjord

Summer evening, June 2005
Cast iron empty chairs

The Norwegian Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies

The former house of Norwegian collaborator and dictator, Vikun Quisling, has become the Norwegian Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, slated to open August 23, 2006 as a research center.  It is sited on the Oslo Fjord, with views of the harbor where Norwegian Jews were shipped to Stettin and Auschwitz. The interior views show current construction (Summer 2005) in a structure that was built by a Norwegian shipping magnate. The facilities will have exhibition space, library, research institute, auditorium, and other facilities. Funding for the project came from the Norwegian government and restitution funds for Jewish losses in the Holocaust.


Entrance and sign describing renovations

Entrance gate

Quisling Villa
Quisling Villa

Quisling Villa
Library

Library under construction
Exhibition hall awaiting new floor

View from Quisling's meeting room, top floor

Another view from Quisling's meeting room, top floor

Memorial to Deportation of Jews of Tromso

Tromso, Norway Memorial to the Holocaust: 17 Jews from Tromso, Norway, were deported to Auschwitz in 1942. A memorial to them is found in the Central Square, about 100 feet off the main coastal shipping boat dock, near a statue of explorer Roald Amundson.

Tromso is a city above the Arctic Circle in Norway, the only such city with such a geographic location with a University. That a monument exists in Tromso shows the relentlessness of the Germans is deporting Jews and support they had from the Norwegian police and the collaborationist regime of Vikun Quisling.

For other monuments see: